


wait, don't grow up yet

by weird_bird (2weird4)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Coming of Age, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 20:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2weird4/pseuds/weird_bird
Summary: "A lot of people take their birthdays as an excuse to be a brat and get away with it.” Dick nudges Damian’s knee while Damian narrows his eyes, distrusting. “Of course,youdon’t need a special day for that.” There it is.





	wait, don't grow up yet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lacemonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacemonster/gifts).



> title from ["eyes on you"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jccImUEWmuE) by veruca salt.
> 
> canon is (future) rebirth with a dash of pre52 b&r. warnings for alcohol, implied sexual content, slightly creepy nostalgia.
> 
> happy birthday, lace! this is admittedly last minute, but i hope you still enjoy.

Dick jumps down the last few stone steps, breathing heavy.

Unlike much of the life-upending chaos his day-to-day has to offer, today’s disaster has been thoroughly mundane. 

He’d planned to drive over from Bludhaven around noon, but his landlady had chosen today to pick a fight about him about the window in his apartment that she could see from the bottom floor was jammed (the one he sneaked out of and into on a nightly basis), and he’d had to hide all his bugs and wires frantically. Then road accidents and heavy traffic from some sports event clogged the roads to Gotham. All finally seemed clear once he was in the city proper. 

That was before he showed up at Damian’s apartment across from the university, let himself in with his key, and found it empty. Defeated (and a little worried--in their line of work, someone missing was never a good sign), he’d texted Damian. Damian informed him that he was down at the Cave tinkering on something with Harper. Or as Damian had worded it, _We are exploring new possibilities with some of my father’s old machinery._ Because Damian loved to be snooty, and he loved to be dramatically vague, and he really loved to be both at the same time. Personally, Dick assigned equal blame for this to Bruce and Talia.

So here Dick was, nice clothes disheveled and smudged with dirt from window shenanigans, the cardboard he held in his hand soggy with sweat. Not what he’d visioned. Ceremony or not, it would have to do. Damian would only turn twenty-one once. “Damian! Happy birthday!”

Damian turns from his task at the low tabletop. Startlingly, he is only in a white t-shirt, bright against his skin. His customary jacket drapes the back of the chair instead. As he drapes a grease-smudged arm across the back of his chair, muscles casually flexing, like he doesn’t know what he looks like, his eyes flick over Dick’s body, up and down. A disdainful eyebrow lifts, then dips, and instead, the very corner of his full mouth softens. “Do I want to know?”

“I’d put us both to sleep telling the tale, so no.” Setting down what’s in his hand, Dick crosses the room to Damian and slides both hands up the sides of Damian’s face.

Something in Damian’s body uncoils, and his head tips, his lips part. His kiss wipes the day from Dick’s mind and body like he’s just woken up. Damian makes an amused sound against his mouth when Dick presses into the kiss, doesn’t stop, and somehow, that’s just as sensual. Stopping him with a thumb on his lip, Damian murmurs, “Apology accepted.”

Dick presses a small kiss to his thumb. He tastes of salt. “That was...easy.” He runs his hand through Damian’s hair, and Damian makes that face that says he likes it so much he’ll pretend to hate it. 

“What can I say?” Damian spreads his hands, all lazy largesse, and Dick laughs. God, Dick’s never going to get the trappings of a conventional courtship from Damian, but what he gives him is so good it doesn’t matter. “I’m feeling generous.”

“You know, most people expect other people to be generous to _them_ on their birthdays. Actually, a lot of people take their birthdays as an excuse to be a brat and get away with it.” Dick nudges Damian’s knee while Damian narrows his eyes, distrusting. “Of course, _you_ don’t need a special day for that.” There it is.

Damian crosses his arms across his chest, a gesture so Bruce it’s vertiginous. “Enough of the insults and more of the presents.”

Sweeping into a mocking bow, Dick picks up what he set on the desk. “I got you your very first legal alcohol on American soil.” 

For several uncomfortable moments too long, Damian remains silent, eyes fixed on the six-pack of beer.

Okay, so the packaging might not be impressive, but it’s fairly fancy imported beer, and it’s what Dick likes when he does drink. Dick offers weakly, “It’s vegan.” He’d researched it and everything after someone had offhandedly mentioned that a beer was vegetarian. It had never occurred to him that beer could be _non_ -vegetarian before, and it hadn’t bothered him at the time, but he had considered it carefully for Damian. He tried to carve out spaces for Damian, no matter how small, always. This gesture was a symbolic one. While Damian expresses disdain at almost everything, he has always respected tradition.

It’s not enough.

Because Damian lifts a crystal tumbler with a splash of amber. Scotch. Bruce’s best.

Dick’s stomach sinks to his toes. _That’s_ how gravitas is done. _That_ is the passing on of tradition. Lowering the heavy bottles, he wipes his hands on his leggings and looks down at his feet. He doesn’t know what he was thinking. It’s Bruce’s job, anyway. Bruce is Damian’s father. His brief stint as Damian’s guardian has been eclipsed by everything they are to each other now, and it’s probably coloring too far outside the lines to expect anything else.

He can feel heavy green eyes on him.

Cowardice keeps Dick’s head bowed. “Well, no worries!” he chirps after a moment. “That wasn’t my only present. It wasn’t the big one.” It had just been big to him.

But Damian seems distracted. He looks past him, and his nostrils faintly flare. “What is that _smell?”_

Surreptitiously, Dick sniffs his shirt. He doesn’t think he reeks that bad.

“It’s _not_ you, it’s--” Fingers to his mouth, Damian blasts a piercing whistle.

Out of the shadows, Goliath slinks like a chastised puppy. Dropping down before them, he gives a plaintive _whuff._

“Aww, hi.” Dick rubs the dense fur on his neck. “Good boy.”

“He is _not_ a dog,” Damian insists, not for the first time. Damian is particular about his pets in every way possible. As his menagerie sprawls wider, acquiring several tanks and even a small plot of farmland to house it, he grows ever more attentive. Damian’s care and warmth with his animals endlessly endears Dick. But he’s not beyond strictness. Grabbing Dick’s arm, he hauls him backwards. “You might not want to do that.” Turning on Goliath, he delivers a rap to his nose-ring. “You’ve been rolling in Batcow’s pasture.”

Goliath tips his head to the side, all feigned innocence. 

Embarrassment of a moment before forgotten in the face of something more urgent, Dick quickly wipes his hand against his thigh. Whoops. Nice pants. Well, not anymore.

“Don’t give me that nonsense.” Damian plants his hands on his hips. Now his physicality is all Talia. “I told you not to bother her. And now you _reek.”_

At that, Goliath whines pathetically, and Dick intervenes on his behalf with a whispered, _”Damian.”_

“No. He needs to learn his lesson,” Damian says, stern. 

Dick tries to give Goliath a sympathetic look, but he really does smell exactly like the wrong end of Batcow. “What if we just gave him a B-A-T-H?” 

Turning his attention to Dick, Damian wrinkles his nose. “Don’t be stupid, Dick. Goliath knows how to spell.” He looks back to Goliath with such relish that Goliath’s ears flip back. A wide, wicked grin spreads across Damian’s face. That something so sly is the most frequent incarnation of his smile should maybe be a matter of concern, but that doesn’t stop Dick’s stomach’s appreciative somersault. _“Bathtime.”_

 

Although fall whispers in the ears of the trees, summer hasn’t bowed off-stage yet. The open, grassy area of the little farm plot is hot even in the late afternoon. After a quick visit and apple treat for Batcow, they lead Goliath outside of the fence.  
“Ready?” Damian asks, and Dick nods, taking both their shoes and phones and placing them safely outside of the splash zone.

Goliath slumps with the air of a man being marched to the gallows.

Damian pats his foot, unsympathetic. “Go get the hose, Dick.”

Washing Damian’s dragon-bat is...far from an ideal birthday activity. But Damian is so incredibly resistant to the idea of birthday parties. The last time someone tried to throw him one, four daggers ended up in the wall. 

As for the showy galas the city expected for Wayne birthdays, everyone had long since given up on them, though magazines would occasionally float out articles about what an eligible bachelor Damian Wayne was. Gushy, speculative blurbs accompanied by pictures of him stepping out impeccably dressed in scarf and boots or petting puppies at the shelter. Those glossy spreads made Dick smile more than anything, but pretending jealousy made Damian one, get all adorably smug and two, let Dick sneak possessive kisses on rooftops, so really, a mutually beneficial transaction.

Still. Dick had planned to take him to dinner tonight, but they can’t have a nice, slow, date-shaped time when Dick arrived so late. They’ll be patrolling in a couple hours, and their reservation is too close to make. So he grabs the hose, wrenches the water to a steady flow, and walks it over.

In the meantime, Damian has acquired a massive bar of soap from the barn. Unwrapping it, he takes the hose from Dick and turns it on Goliath. Once he’s dripping, Damian outright climbs onto him, scrubbing vigorously behind his ears.

“Is this a two-man job?” Dick calls up to him.

Damian rinses his ear with handfuls of water so no drips get inside. “It could be.”

Soaping up his hands promptly, Dick rubs them over Goliath’s furry chest, getting him all sudsy. Goliath’s expression goes from miserable to pleased. “Yeah. Good boy. That’s okay. We’ll get you all clean.” He cleans his big paws, too. When he looks up at Damian, Damian has his arms around Goliath’s neck and is looking at Dick with heart-stopping affection. Dick blushes. “Instincts.”

After he rinses off the last of the bubbles, Damian swings off of Goliath in a way that just makes Dick think _Legolas._ Then he steps into Dick’s chest and swipes suds onto his cheek. “Good instincts.”

Remembering the fumble earlier, Dick grimaces. “Not always.”

“Tt.” Damian’s eyes flick upwards. “The gesture is noted.”

“Noted?” Dick repeats, hopeful. An arm snakes around Damian’s waist, the hose running from his hand, forgotten.

Damian’s eyes complete the roll. “Appreciated,” he mumbles.

Breaking into a smile, Dick kisses his cheek, then his neck. “I just--the years are going by so fast, and I...Sometimes I just think I’m not _ready--_ ” Whatever revealing sentimentalities were going to slip past his lips are thoroughly cut-off.

“Goliath!” Damian shouts in dismay as Goliath shakes, showering them with water. “No!”

Dick laughs and shoves at Goliath, but it’s no use. It’s only after he’s fluffy as a fanged pom-pom and Dick and Damian are drenched that he flops down, satisfied. “And you say he’s not a dog.”

“Not my favorite birthday present,” Damian remarks. Black hair drips into his downturned face. How the tables turn.

“Oh, that reminds me. I have your other birthday present--” Dick reaches back.

Damian frowns. Then his expression clears. “Wait, Dick, no--”

Seizing the hose, he jams his thumb into it so it sprays Damian thoroughly, laughing louder. Wisely, Goliath ambles off to drier pastures. Now those are good instincts.

“Grayson, you ass!” Damian tackles him and snatches the hose back, dumping water directly onto his abdomen.

Gasping at the flood of cold, Dick twists under him. They’ve always been rough-and-tumble, two physical people connected by kinetics as much as the cerebral. Damian can tell him more with a touch than some people can tell him with an hour of dialogue. And when Damian does use words, it’s so telling. _Grayson._ On the surface, an act of distancing, but inside him, he feels the intimacy, the calling-back.

Damian pushes back his wet hair with impatience and tosses away the hose. “Grayson,” he repeats. Water drips off his face, and Dick can’t help but lick his lips, the cool sliding onto his tongue. Their chests move and stick together, and under the white, he can see the dark points of his nipples.

Dragging a hand up his side, he sneaks under his shirt to touch the sleek muscle under scars. Not a wiry teen, all elbows and knees. A man. His thumb finds a nipple, nail catching, and Damian’s head falls forward. Heart pounding faster, Dick flips him on the soft grass. Tucks him under his body best as he can with how big he is now and looks at him, looks at him growing up and away from him, and his throat ties itself in a knot. He licks his lips again. “Baby boy.”

Pupil eclipses the green of Damian’s eyes. He trembles beneath Dick, and when he moans so low, kisses him so needy, Dick knows it isn’t from the cold.

 

“Sexual favors make an uninspired birthday present.” Damian’s head lolls back as they lounge against the hood of his car, boneless. 

Dick won’t take that ding. “You were calling me a lot of things, but ‘uninspired’ wasn’t one of them.” 

_”Tt,”_ Damian says, which means that Dick hasn’t won.

“Okay, but I really did get you something. Hang on.” Dick reaches into the passenger side for his phone, hot from sitting on the leather. He thumbs open the website and passes it open.

Damian eyes his phone with skepticism. Uncertainty enters his voice. “Flight tickets?”

“December. Over your winter break,” Dick explains. Breaks between semesters are just about the only time Damian can spare with his double major, and Dick soaks up those days with greed. He’ll fly him away to another country just to keep him to himself. “You coming, or do I have to take Tim?”

A glare. “You really want to go to England again?” Damian thumbs down the screen. “After what happened last time?”

“I didn’t say _Wordenshire.”_ Knight and Squire, Kate and the Lazarus Pit. Zombie not-Bruce. Not the Dynamic Duo’s finest adventure. “Besides, all the more reason for a redo.”

Damian’s nose and brow crinkle. “I can’t help but feel that is...twisted.” 

“So you’re coming, then.” Dick kisses the top of his wet head. 

“What would you do without me to watch your back?” 

Dick has done plenty. As a child, zigzagged the country, navigating towns on his own while his parents helped set up with ten bucks in his pocket, in his teens, led teams before Damian was even an abstract concept to him. Left Damian’s graveside to throw himself into a hostile spy organization. He can always leave. But Damian makes him want to stand still.  
To stay.

Turning his head, he kisses Damian one more time, eyes closed against the spears of late sun shot from the horizon.

“I may have to bring my research with me,” Damian tells him, twining a finger in Dick’s limp collar.

“I may have to distract you.” Like Dick won’t be obsessing over case files in their hotel bed. “What research, though?”

Damian seems to toy with answering. Then he sighs. “Research on...veterinary schools with good exotic animal medicine programs.”

Dick’s jaw drops. “Really?” Damian has been working away at both business and biology, and it seems that he has chosen a path. “I--wow, Damian, that’s big.”

“I haven’t told Father yet,” Damian cautions. He crosses his arms over his abdomen. “After careful deliberation, I’ve decided...it would be best.”

“I think so, too.” Damian’s head shoots up, and Dick beams. “It’s so right for you.”

“I’m going to be excellent at it,” Damian says firmly.

“You are.” Dick nods. Taking Damian’s hand, he adds, “You’re going to be _happy.”_

Damian’s eyes flicker. Ah. A factor he still does not always consider.

Ignoring the pang at that, Dick tries, “You know, your granddad was a doctor. You’re following in his footsteps.” Dick wants Damian to know how bad he wants this for him. Maybe this, he can understand better.

A quick shake of the head. “Not quite.”

He’s _stubborn._ Dick should drag him over this hood and spank him. “Pretty close. Almost a family tradition,” he insists.

Damian weighs that, gaze roaming over the fields. Then he dips his head. “Tradition enough.”

Dick thinks about Damian spending all his days taking care of animals, drawing from the deep well of good in his heart and pouring it into the world, and he feels giddy. Tradition enough. “I’ll drink to that.” Drawing a bottle of beer out of the back, he wiggles it.

“That swill again?” Nevertheless, Damian passes him a knife--okay, Dick had his hand all the way down his pants twenty minutes ago, how did he miss the _thigh holster_ \--so he can crack off the lid.

Dick takes a pull off the top. “How do you know it’s swill? Pretty sure you wouldn’t have drunk this kind before.”

Nabbing the bottle, Damian drinks. His face freezes, and he holds it in his mouth. As breath-taking as his partner usually is, he’s really never looked more like a frog.

“Just _swallow.”_ Dick raises his eyebrows. “I did teach you how, right?”

Face contorting further at the tawdry joke, Damian gulps down the beer. “Swill,” he pronounces.

Well. He did try. “We can do some fancy wine-tasting in Europe, see if you like that better.” Dick sets the bottle down on the hood. “Maybe this wasn’t just your poison.”

“I suppose I can’t give up on beer.” Damian taps his fingers on his arm. “That was the first time I’ve tried it at all.”

“So you were judging before you even gave it a chance!” Dick exclaims. “Snobby.”

“You’re missing the point,” Damian claims, though he doesn’t attempt to deflect the moniker. “Father gave me my first scotch, but you gave me my first beer.”

Oh. Dick’s lips twitch up at the corners. “How about that.”

Wings beat overhead, and they look up as one to see Goliath already making his way home without them (Dick can only hope Damian will keep a closer leash on his lions and tigers and bears). With the sun dropping in the sky, they should be going, too, getting ready for patrol. 

So the day comes to an end. But it’s all right; it’s the start of another night, another life, theirs.


End file.
